Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/223

 CHAPTER XII THE HEROIC MYTHS

I. CÚCHULAINN AND HIS CIRCLE

HE Celts possessed many myths regarding Ideal heroic figures or actual heroes who tended to become mythical. A kind of saga was formed about some of these, telling of their birth, their deeds, their amours their procuring for men spoils from the gods' land, and their death or departure to Elysium; while round them were ranged other personages whose deeds are also recounted, and who may have been the subjects of separate sagas. Groups of tribes had each their hero, who occasionally attained wider popularity and was adopted by other tribes. To these heroes are ascribed magic and supernatural deeds. Some of them are of divine origin — sons of gods or reincarnations of gods—and they differ in many respects from ordinary men—in size, or appearance, or in power. In a sense they are divine and may have been at one time subjects of a cult, but in the myths they are represented as living and moving on earth, and to some of them a definite date is given. The three heroes best known, each the centre of a group, are Cúchulainn, Fionn, and Arthur. The stories concerning Cúchulainn, who is more prominent than his King, Conchobar, were current among the tribes of Ulster; those about Fionn were popular first in Leinster and Munster, then over all Ireland and the West Highlands; those about Arthur were found among the Brythons.

Cúchulainn is the chief figure about the court of Conchobar, alleged to have been King of Ulster at the beginning of the Christian era. The heroes were "champions of the Red